Meditation Helps Us Understand More About The Nature Of “Being”

Western culture tends to place great value on individual wealth and the outward signs of “success” without recognizing the value of a rich inner, spiritual life. It has created a frenzied, goal-driven environment in which it is increasingly difficult to find the opportunity to focus on individual thoughts, feelings and actions or to contemplate our relationship with the world around us.

Eastern tradition offers a radical alternative to the materialism of the modern age and has much to teach us about the nature of “being”. When subtly adapted to suit our modern lives, Eastern philosophy can help us to rediscover the spiritual values sadly lacking in our modern Western lifestyles.

Meditation used to be an art from that dates back thousands of years, and is well known for being practiced by monks and other religious or spiritual people. But today meditation is associated with many health benefits for the mind and the body. It is being used more widely, and what most people don’t know, is that there is more than one form of meditation.

Understanding the Term Meditation

The subject of meditation can still be confusing and even intimidating to some people, but the best way to describe mediation is by this:

Meditation is a practice that allows a person to train their mind to release the chatter in the mind, and develop a better way of thinking.

This could be to stop focusing on the past and let worries, doubts and anxieties go, to decrease stress and relax, or to develop a more positive mindset.

The practice of meditation allows you to learn how to relax your mind and your body. It can help you develop a new life force, also known as gi, ki, and prana.

At the same time you can learn how to love again, have more compassion, improve your generosity and to forgive people and situations that are hard to let go. It can also help you to better learn and listen to your inner wisdom, intuition, and universal guiding system.

It can help you find solutions to problems, or develop new creative ways and ideas for future (ad)ventures.

Buddhist monks used meditation on a daily basis and it helped them perform their rituals. Many religions incorporate some form of meditation into their beliefs. It is often used to help clear the mind and to sync the body and mind and bring them in harmony together. Mantras were often performed while in a sitting position and helped a person develop a calm state of mind.

There are many different meditation practices, but one of the main used methods or goals is to relax your mind and become totally aware of your thoughts and feelings. This can be done by clearing your mind and only thinking about one thing at a time. You may wish to focus on things that you like to see changed or forgiving someone for a recent action they took.

Today it is recognized that meditation can be done in many ways with tons of benefits. Taking part in yoga is one way to meditating. Kneeling or sitting and repeating phrases or quotes, is yet another way. It is even possible to meditate while walking, and numerous people actually perform it this way. Some consciously, but most unconsciously.

While at one time there may have been strict guidelines and expectations to meditation, today how you meditate and where is more of a personal choice. However two of the most important steps is to choose:

A location that is quiet and peaceful. One that allows you not to be disturbed

A position that is comfortable for you

We will expand more on how to make the most of your meditation later in our series “How to Meditate”. But first we’ll need to address a few other topics about meditation and some different meditation practices. In our next article we will talk about Transcendental Meditation.